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Alternative Radio (Aust)

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AR is a weekly one hour, award winning, unembedded, independently produced radio program heard exclusively on Community Radio throughout Australia. AR provides information, analysis and views that are ignored or distorted in most mainstream media.

AR is a weekly one hour, award winning, unembedded, independently produced radio program heard exclusively on Community Radio throughout Australia. AR provides information, analysis and views that are ignored or distorted in most mainstream media.

AR is a weekly one hour, award winning, unembedded, independently produced radio program heard exclusively on Community Radio throughout Australia. AR provides information, analysis and views that are ignored or distorted in most mainstream media.

Episodes

190704 Stephen Bezruchka – Making America Healthy Again

11/26/2017

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The U.S. pays more for health care than any other country yet has shamefully poor results. People are paying through the nose for their hospital stays, surgeries and prescription drugs. An MRI in the U.S. costs five times what it costs in Australia. Instead of quality affordable health care we are building absurdly expensive F-35s, submarines and aircraft carriers. And there is a cool trillion dollars for nuclear weapons. Our spending priorities are upside down. Every other industrialized...

Duration: 00:59:01

170903 Cynthia Kaufman – Capitalism: Getting Past It

11/19/2017

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The present phase of capitalism is a great success story for the uber rich. Torrents of wealth flow overwhelmingly to a sliver of the population. Millennials in large numbers are seriously questioning the existing economic order. They are even willing to, hold your breath, consider a socialist alternative. The Bernie Sanders campaign made a huge impact on many young people and sparked interest in socialism. When millennials hear the term capitalism they think about Wall Street bailouts,...

Duration: 00:59:01

170902 Jonathan Kozol – Humanising Public Education

11/12/2017

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The Austrian-born economist Friedrich von Hayek may be intellectual godfather of neoliberalism: present-day right-wing economics. His book, The Road to Serfdom, is considered to be the bible of anti-government, free market ideas and the privatization of just about everything. From war to prisons, a core goal of neoliberalism is: Let the private sector do it. And there are few bigger targets than public education. The 50 million students who attend public schools are viewed as products and...

Duration: 00:59:01

170901 Richard Wolff – Capitalism vs Socialism

11/5/2017

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The great radical historian Howard Zinn once told me, half in jest, that one of the greatest disasters to befall socialism was when the Soviet Union put it in the official name of the country: The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. I asked him to explain and he said, The USSR, which had little to do with socialism, it was an authoritarian state, wanted to capitalize on the almost universal good name that socialism had. And the capitalist countries played along by smearing socialism and...

Duration: 00:59:00

151003 Deepa Kumar - Imperialist Feminism

10/29/2017

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When you hear imperialists making claims about their concerns for women's rights then you know something is really rotten in Denmark. The plight of women has historically been mobilized to suit the goals of empire. That continues to the present. One of the pretexts of the U.S.–led invasion of Afghanistan was "rescuing Afghan women." Writing about that, noted author and activist Arundhati Roy of India observed, "We're being asked to believe that the U.S. marines are actually on a feminist...

Duration: 00:58:57

150703 Glenn Greenwald - Why Privacy Matters

10/22/2017

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In democratic societies some things have long been considered sacrosanct. Such as the right to privacy. Not any more. It is violated on a routine and systematic basis. States scream: national security or terrorism to justify their expansion of surveillance. In terms of the sheer scope of spying the USA puts the old USSR to shame. Without privacy there is neither freedom nor democracy. There has to be a space where you can express your innermost thoughts, emotions and vulnerabilities. The...

Duration: 00:58:22

150302 Michael Schwartz - Oil and Gas Wars

10/15/2017

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Gas prices are falling. The price of oil per barrel is at its lowest level in several years. Why? We're told the global economy is slowing down again. Europe is sluggish. Japan is in recession. China's growth rate is weakening. But there may be other factors. The U.S. is producing a huge amount of oil, particularly from shale. Prices are dropping because the market is flooded and production is outstripping demand. Reportedly, the U.S. got the Saudis, still the biggest producer, to quietly...

Duration: 00:58:55

150203 Naomi Klein - Capitalism vs The Climate

10/8/2017

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"Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present...

Duration: 00:58:59

150103 Richard Wolff - The Market: A Paragon of Virtue

10/1/2017

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Myths die hard. Just as there are no unicorns, there is no free market. The myth is propagandized by its beneficiaries - the rich and powerful, the one percent. The oft-repeated line is the market is some neutral entity which fosters competition and people benefit as prices come down. Reality is slightly different. We don't have a really free market because there is massive government intervention to prop it up through bailouts and subsidies, tax breaks and loopholes. The system generates...

Duration: 00:59:03

170804 Michael Parent – Conspiracy and Class Power

9/24/2017

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Class and power are closely correlated, That societies have a ruling class is derided as passe Marxist rhetoric. But to deny its existence is folly. Class can be measured by one's income and savings, and ownership of stocks, bonds and property. Power is more difficult to calibrate. It is the capacity of a ruling class to produce outcomes that enrich and enhance its status. There are many forms of power such as economic, political and military. That a ruling class acts to promote its...

Duration: 00:59:10

170703 Thomas Frank – The Country That Voted For Trump

8/20/2017

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The election of Donald Trump was a stunning political upset. His victory defied the predictions of almost every pundit and pollster. Though he received about 3 million fewer votes than his opponent, the antiquarian Electoral College system in the U.S. gave him the presidency. The New York real estate mogul, TV celebrity and billionaire ran as a self-proclaimed outsider against what he portrayed as entrenched and corrupt political elites. He would "drain the swamp" in Washington. Despite a...

Duration: 00:59:10

170702 Max Blumenthal - Palestine: 50 Years of Occupation

8/13/2017

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Fifty Years have passed since Israel's victory in the Six-Day War resulting in the longest military occupation in modern times. And on the ground there has been a radical shift in demographics because of the settlements. What began as a few scattered outposts has now mushroomed into vast sub-divisions and cities with Jewish only road networks connecting them make it difficult for Palestinians to travel. About 600,000 Israelis now live beyond the country's 1967 borders. The Palestinians are...

Duration: 00:59:17

170701 Madawi Al-Rasheed - Saudi Arabia: History and Politics

8/6/2017

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Saudi Arabia is a quixotic ally of the U.S., to say the least. Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were from the desert kingdom. In the wake of the attack, the U.S. flew Saudi elites out of the country and then preceded to invade Afghanistan, through no Afghans were involved in 9/11. You figure it out. Saudi Arabia has supported extremist jihadi groups from Pakistan to Syria. In the 1980s it bankrolled the mujahideen in Afghanistan who later morphed into the Taliban. When the latter...